


Hand of Fate

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Aging, Courtly Love, Destiny, F/M, Fairy Tales, Fate, Gen, Growing Old Together, Love, Magic, Memory, Regret, Romance, fortune, palmistry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 20:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13643976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Jon and Thayet reflect on destiny as they grow old together.





	Hand of Fate

Hand of Fate

“Trying to read the future in your palms?” Thayet crooned as she draped her arms like a cloak about her husband’s slumped shoulders. He was sitting, curled in on himself as if impersonating a turtle, on the stone bench of the balcony outside their bedchamber, head buried in the heels of his hands. His salt-and-pepper hair swayed in the slight breeze blowing off the Olorun, wafting the scent of spring blossoms into the air. 

“I don’t see much of a future there.” Jon pulled out of his shell to trace a faint line along his palm. “You see how short my lifeline is, Thayet? It looks as though it were cut off almost before it began the way I should’ve died young in the Sweating Sickness if Alanna hadn’t worked a miracle to heal me.” 

“You weren’t meant to die from the evil magic of your wicked uncle.” Thayet’s lips quirked as she realized how much like a fairy tale she had made his life sound, but she, the daughter of the most beautiful woman in the world who had jumped from a tower in defiant despair, knew better than anyone that fairy tales were more fractured than perfect when you were living in them. “If you were meant to die, Alanna wouldn’t have been able to heal you. You were always meant to live. That’s why the line picks up almost immediately after breaking off, Jon.” 

“You act as if you’re an expert on fortune-telling.” Jon chuckled as he cupped her cheeks between his palms. “One would think you were part Doi wisewoman.” 

“I’m not part Doi wisewoman, but I did have my fortune told by one once.” Thayet thought she had lost that memory in the cavern of her mind but it was clinging to the sides of her skull, waiting to be dragged out into daylight. “She studied my hands and said I would never return to my home again.” 

“Do you regret—?” Jon’s strokes across her face were half question and half apology. There was so much Thayet could have filled in the blanks with—leaving Sarain, coming to Tortall, marrying him—but the answer was the same no matter the question. She and Jon had never been a couple to dwell on regrets, on wistful could-have-beens or bitter should-have-beens since those thoughts were poison in a golden chalice. 

“I have no regrets.” Thayet’s graying braid slapped against her back as she shook her head with a sharpness that could scatter any sorrow she still felt about leaving Sarain, war-torn land of her ancestors that she could never have saved regardless of how hard she had tried. Thinking that at her and Jon’s age—when they had two beloved grandchildren to dote on—life was too short, too precious, to squander on regrets that could break a heart worse than love, she finished, trying to forget Sarain in the spring wind off the Olorun, “There was nothing for me in Sarain, and everything for me here. The fortune-teller was wrong, because hands aren’t a reliable source of information.” 

“No, my dear.” Jon kissed her forehead as he had started doing such a long time ago when they were courting, and she wasn’t his queen but a poor princess humbly seeking sanctuary in his realm. “You’re a much more reliable source of information. I will yield to your great wisdom as always.” 

“My great wisdom?” Thayet arched an eyebrow with more white than black in it at him. “You make me sound an old crone.” 

“You’re an old crone, and I’m a wizened wizard.” Jon’s smirk still had the power to make Thayet’s stomach somersault. “We’re perfect for one another.” 

“After all these years of marriage, you’re still worse than a bumbling boy about giving backhanded compliments.” Thayet wrinkled her nose at him. 

“After all these years of marriage, you’re still fishing for compliments like a dithering girl making her court debut.” Jon stuck his nose in the air, and she tapped it down with her finger.


End file.
